Actress Cybill Shepherd (The Last Picture Show, Moonlighting) will participate in a Q&A after the 3pm screening of BEING ROSE on Sunday, 1/20 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. The film also stars James Brolin and Pam Grier.

About the film:
After being diagnosed with serious health issues, ex-cop Rose Jones (Cybill Shepherd) goes on a road trip in a wheelchair to search for her estranged son. Along the way, she falls in love with Max (James Brolin), a handsome old cowboy who has come to a crossroads of his own. Pam Grier co-stars. Written and directed by Rod McCall.

Q&A with Pawel Pawlikowski, director of the Oscar shortlisted film COLD WAR, following the 5:20 pm show on Saturday, January 12th at the Royal in West LA. His previous film IDA won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014. Click here for tickets.

Filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda will participate in a Q&A following the 1:20pm screening of his Oscar shortlisted, Palme d’Or winning masterpiece, SHOPLIFTERS, on Sunday, January 13th at the Laemmle Royal in West LA. Click here for tickets. NPR film critic Ella Taylor will moderate.

After starring in many acclaimed and popular films, Streisand made her directorial debut with this adaptation of a provocative Isaac Bashevis Singer story, Yentl the Yeshiva Boy. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards and won the Oscar for Original Song Score by Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Streisand also became the first woman to win a Golden Globe for directing.

Streisand first thought of making a straight dramatic film of Singer’s story — she pursued the rights in the late 1960s, after her successful film debut in Funny Girl — but it took 15 years to realize her dream. After many rejections, her friends Marilyn and Alan Bergman suggested bringing the story to life as a musical film, which enabled Streisand to win over skeptical (and chauvinistic) Hollywood executives by guaranteeing that she would once again sing on screen.

Singer’s story tells of a young woman living in a Polish village at the turn of the 20th century. She is determined to get an education, but the strict Orthodox Jewish customs of the time forbid women from entering religious schools. So she disguises herself as a boy and makes a strong impression in her classes. But her personal life gets complicated when a man she loves (Mandy Patinkin) persuades her to marry his own fiancée (Amy Irving), who then begins to develop romantic feelings for her new “husband.”

Way ahead of its time in examining complex transgender relationships, the film became a box office hit and earned Oscar nominations for Irving, the inventive production design, and two of the songs written by the Bergmans and Legrand, including a song that would become one of Streisand’s signature numbers, “Papa Can You Hear Me?”

Nehemiah Persoff, Steven Hill, Allan Corduner and Miriam Margolyes co-star. The elegant cinematography is by David Watkin (Out of Africa, Chariots of Fire, Moonstruck). Streisand wrote the screenplay with Jack Rosenthal. She went on to direct other films at a time when female filmmakers were still a rarity.

Pauline Kael wrote of Yentl, “It has a distinctive and surprising spirit. It’s funny, delicate, and intense—all at the same time.” Newsweek’s Jack Kroll called the film “a delight and at times an astonishment.”

Alan Bergman, our special guest speaker, co-wrote two Academy Award-winning songs, “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair and “The Way We Were.” He and his wife earned many other nominations, and in 1982, they had the distinction of being the only songwriters ever to write lyrics for three of the five songs nominated for best song, including the theme from the smash hit comedy, Tootsie.

Over the course of their careers, they collaborated with composers Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, Quincy Jones, Dave Grusin, John Williams, and many others. They have also written for the theater and television, and Alan Bergman still has an active career singing in nightclubs.

YENTL screens at 7:30pm on December 27th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Oscar-winning songwriter Alan Bergman and film critic Stephen Farber in person for a discussion and Q&A. Click here for tickets.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to director Nicolas Roeg with a screening of his eerie, atmospheric thriller, DON’T LOOK NOW, on Tuesday, December 18 at Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills.

Roeg, who began as a master cinematographer, had a distinctive visual style that received perhaps its most brilliant expression in this suspenseful film adapted from a story by Daphne Du Maurier, the author of ‘Rebecca.’ Screenwriters Allan Scott and Chris Bryant retained the basic premise of the story but embellished and expanded it under Roeg’s guidance.

Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland play a married couple whose young daughter drowns in the movie’s opening scene. A few months later, they are in Venice, where Sutherland is working to restore an old church. But they are still grief-stricken and traumatized, and when they meet two elderly sisters who claim to be able to communicate with their dead daughter, the couple embark on a supernatural journey that takes them in unexpected directions. Christie finds comfort in the sisters’ message, while Sutherland is more skeptical, though it turns out he has clairvoyant gifts that he tries to suppress.

Set in the gray of winter, the film avoids the usual Venice tourist spots and instead creates an indelible vision of a labyrinthine city cloaked in shadows and sinister portents, as a murderer also haunts the canals and byways and threatens the lives of the two lead characters.

Roeg’s fractured editing style adds to the unsettling nature of the film, but this editing also contributes to one of the most famous interludes in the film, a lovemaking scene between Christie and Sutherland that has been called one of the most erotic and influential in cinema history.

Anthony Richmond was the film’s cinematographer, Graeme Clifford was the editor, and Pino Donaggio composed the evocative score.

Pauline Kael had high praise for the performances: “Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland team up wonderfully.”

Newsweek’s Paul D. Zimmerman called the film “a dark and frightening experience unlike anything ever filmed…Roeg, a masterly technician, builds up an atmosphere of dread you can taste in your throat.”

TIME magazine’s Jay Cocks agreed, writing “this is a film of deep terrors and troubling insights—one that works a spell of continual, mounting anxiety,” and he concluded, “Roeg’s is one of those rare talents that can effect a new way of seeing.”

Roeg oversaw some of the astonishing second unit photography in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ before graduating to cinematographer of such films as ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ ‘Far from the Madding Crowd,’ and ‘Petulia’ (all starring Christie). He made his directing debut (sharing credit with screenwriter Donald Cammell) on the Mick Jagger film ‘Performance.’ His other memorable films include ‘Walkabout,’ ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ with David Bowie, and ‘Bad Timing,’ which teamed Art Garfunkel with Theresa Russell, the actress who became Roeg’s wife and the star of many of his late films.

The director’s nonlinear storytelling and visual acuity had a tremendous influence on other directors, including Danny Boyle, Steven Soderbergh, and Martin McDonagh, who have all paid tribute to Roeg’s gifts.

DON’T LOOK NOW screens on Tuesday, December 18 at 7:30PM at Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

This December, classic disaster films are coming to the NoHo 7 by land, by sea, and by air!

Our “Disaster December” Throwback Thursday series begins on Thursday, December 6th with EARTHQUAKE! Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. Check out the full schedule below!

December 6: Earthquake

After an earthquake destroys Los Angeles, architect Stewart Graff (Charlton Heston) tries to rescue his estranged wife (Ava Gardner), help with the ongoing rescue efforts taking place around him, and locate his girlfriend (Geneviève Bujold). Richard Roundtree and Lorne Green also star. TICKETS.

December 13: The Poseidon Adventure

The Poseidon, an ocean liner larger than the Queens Elizabeth and Mary combined, is charting its course on New Year’s Eve. Just after midnight, Captain Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) spots the mother of all tidal waves. The ship is overturned, with only a handful of survivors. The ten lucky ones — including Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine), Linda Rogo (Stella Stevens), Acres (Roddy McDowall), Belle Rosen (Shelley Winters), and Manny Rosen (Jack Albertson) — led by no-nonsense minister Frank Scott (Gene Hackman), desperately attempt to climb from the top of the ship (now submerged) to the bottom (now “the top”). TICKETS.

December 20: Airport

Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin star in this hit disaster movie that began the genre. Based on Arthur Hailey’s 1968 novel of the same name, the film follows an airport manager trying to keep his airport open during a snowstorm while the a Boeing 707 crew tries to safely land after a terrorist detonates a bomb on board. Also starring Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, and George Kennedy. TICKETS.

December 27: No Screening

Details about January #TBT screenings are coming soon. Remember to check www.laemmle.com/tbt for updates!

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 55th anniversary screening of acclaimed director Luchino Visconti’s sumptuous masterpiece, THE LEOPARD (Il Gattopardo). The film will close out the year for the popular Anniversary Classics Abroad program of showcasing vintage foreign-language cinema.

The Leopard is based on the historical novel by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, an international best seller upon publication in 1958. The story is set in the 1860s during the turbulent period of the “Risorgimento,” the struggle for the unification of Italy.

All this is reflected in the fate of one Sicilian aristocratic family, headed by Prince Fabrizio de Salina (Burt Lancaster). The Prince (the Leopard) at first resists all the political and social changes, but comes to accept them after their embrace by his pragmatic nephew (Alain Delon), who joins Garibaldi’s Red Shirts and marries the daughter (Claudia Cardinale) of an ambitious small-town merchant mayor to secure the family’s place in the new Italy.

Visconti was drawn to the material about fading aristocracy from his own heritage, as he was born to nobility in Milan. He had previously explored his country’s past with another historical adaptation, Senso, in 1954, and that film is also considered a masterwork.

The Leopard won the Palme D’or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival and has been reissued on several occasions. The film is notable for its rich production design by Mario Garbuglia, cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno, and Oscar-nominated costume design by Piero Tosi, who won an Honorary Oscar in 2014.

The original release reaped praise from The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther, “a stunning visualization of a mood of melancholy and nostalgia at the passing of an age.” Admiration has grown through the decades, with The London Observer calling it “That rare thing—a great film from a great book.” J. Hoberman in the Village Voice exclaimed, “The greatest film of its kind since World War II.”

Martin Scorsese is one of the film’s champions, placing it on his own personal list of the 12 greatest films ever made, extolling “the deeply measured tone…its use of vast spaces, and also the richness of every detail.” As a lament for a lost world, the film is considered Italy’s Gone With the Wind.

For the month of November, all Laemmle Theatres concessions stands feature Project Angel Food cookies with all proceeds going to this amazing organization that prepares and delivers healthy meals to feed people impacted by serious illness. You can also add a little extra cash donation with any purchase.

Can’t make it to one of our theaters or want to do more? Do what we did and volunteer! Team Laemmle spent last Thursday preparing food at Project Angel Food and had a blast. Find out how you can help at www.angelfood.org!